


california winter

by skuls



Series: X Files Rewatch Series [24]
Category: The X-Files
Genre: Episode: s06e12 One Son, Episode: s07e10 Sein Und Zeit, Episode: s07e11 Closure, Gen, Pre-XF, crazy mythology au, idk what this is, references to mytharc from
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-10
Updated: 2018-04-10
Packaged: 2019-04-20 21:58:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,269
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14270409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skuls/pseuds/skuls
Summary: Fox and Samantha Mulder, brother and sister, disappeared from their homes on November 27, 1973.(A shift in the events of Samantha's abduction leads to a very different outcome.)





	california winter

**Author's Note:**

> this largely resulted from a) wanting to write something about cassandra and jeffrey spender, and teena mulder, and b) consideration of the scene in Everything Changes But The Sea where csm selfishly considers taking both kids so that he can raise mulder himself. 
> 
> i wanted to write it around the sein und zeit/closure arc because of the reveals in the mythology, but i also wanted to give the story a different ending. i just found the way that the mulder family ended up in those episodes incredibly depressing, and i wanted to leave it somewhere happier. samantha and teena and mulder all deserved better.
> 
> it was weird as shit to call mulder "fox" and csm "carl" the whole time, and they shoulda given carl a more menacing name.

Fox and Samantha Mulder, brother and sister, disappeared from their homes on November 27, 1973. He was twelve, she was eight. Foul play was suspected, but aside from pictures that had fallen off the wall and a Stratego game that was knocked over, there were no signs of it. 

In the police report, the father was noted as grim, tense, like he was trying to hold back anger. The mother was observed as hysterical. The neighbors said that she'd screamed when they found the house empty and the children gone, shouted, “You lied to me!” and ran at her husband, insisting, “You said only one of them would be taken!” before dissolving into sobs. The father was brought in for questioning, but one Mr. Spender, who stank of nicotine, brought him home before any questioning could take place. The same Mr. Spender who would eventually call off the investigation a month later.

The mother, Teena, disappeared into herself. She rarely left the house, she answered questions that were asked of her in a monotone voice. Occasionally, people would hear near-hysterical screams from the house, an argument going back and forth, and watch as the father, Bill, exited the house with the same man who drove him home the night of his childrens’ disappearance. They said that losing both of her children in one night like that nearly killed her. They said she had lost it. They said she blamed her husband. 

No one was surprised when she packed her bags and left the night the investigation was called off. 

\---

Fox had wanted a little brother, instead of a little sister. His mother loved to tell the story, with a degree of dry humor, about the day they had brought Samantha home. The way he’d leaned over the crib with a suspicious look on his face before demanding to know why they had brought home a sister instead of a brother. Now he had both, if Mr. Spender was to be believed, and he had no idea how to feel about that. 

He supposed that it was like his mother had told him one day when he wasn't watching Samantha and she almost ran out into the road. “You're Samantha's big brother,” she'd said in a stern voice, “and it's your job to protect your sister. Because that's what big brothers do.” He'd only been seven, then, and he was twelve now, much older. And protecting Samantha had become much more of a reality since they were brought to this new house. He guessed that if Mr. Spender was telling the truth and Jeffrey really was his little brother, then he needed to protect him, too. He didn't know how to feel about that, but one thing was for certain: if he and Samantha didn't watch out for Jeffrey, no one else would.

It was a cold day on the verge of winter, in mid December, and Jeffrey wanted to play outside. Even though Samantha wasn't really his sister—Mr. Spender had told her over and over again that she wasn't, that she and Fox had different fathers and Fox and Jeffrey had different mothers, a mixed bag of parents that Fox found confusing as hell—she acted like she was, taking his hand and pacing around the yard and up the sidewalk with him. She loved not being the youngest kid for once, and she felt protective of Jeffrey, perhaps instinctively. She was imitating all the babysitters in their neighborhood, all those lipsticked girls who lugged around sparkly purses and were bossy to all the kids, marching around holding their hands firmly so they didn't run out in the road. They'd had a babysitter like that once, when they were smaller, and Fox had loathed her and her condescending tone and the way she'd talk on the phone the whole time, but Samantha had adored her.

The kids had hats and coats and scarves on that Mr. Spender made them wear, but Fox knew it wasn't because he didn't want them to catch cold. He knew it was because it would mess up the experiments if they got too cold or something. He refused to wear the hat or scarf, throwing it aside and glaring with Mr. Spender with contempt. Samantha had argued similarly their first couple weeks, but she was scared now. She couldn't be expected to fight back, really, because she was just a little third grader. Fox scowled at the sidewalk with some contempt. She was only a kid and they shouldn't have brought her here. Or Jeffrey, even if he was Mr. Spender's son. Or him. He didn't want to be here, either. 

Jeffrey and Samantha walked ahead of him, hand in hand, as Samantha showed him the place where the cement was soft. The base they'd been brought to in December (after waking up in some shoddy hospital after an ordeal Fox couldn't remember outside of bright lights, and that Samantha wouldn't talk about) was still being built, it seemed. 

“Look, Jeffrey, we can put our hands in the cement and write our names,” Samantha said, poking the cement with a stick. She'd always wanted to do that after seeing it in a movie, Fox knew that, but cement had never been poured near where they lived. “Do you know how to write your name?”

“Nuh-uh,” Jeffrey said, sticking his thumb in his mouth. “I was gonna learn in school, but Daddy took me out of school. He said there would be a school here, but there isn't.”

_ That's because he's a liar, _ Fox thought rebelliously, watching the kids from a few feet back. Jeffrey was even littler than Samantha, a kindergarten baby. What the hell was he doing here? What the hell were any of them doing here? If Mr. Spender was Jeffrey's dad, then he was a shitty one. What kind of dad brought their kid here?

“I'll write it for you, then,” Samantha said, in her bossiest voice. (One she loved to use with Fox and her friends, but Jeffrey was the first person not to question it.) She showed him how to out his hand in the cement, pressing it flat before grabbing a stick and writing  _ Jeffrey _ underneath it in her neat handwriting that their mom was always so proud of. In the months since they'd arrived, Jeffrey had learned to like them both a lot—especially Samantha, probably because she was nicer than Fox. Fox had what his dad (his  _ real  _ dad, not stupid Mr. Spender, no matter what genetics or whatever said) called a bad attitude, and it served him well here in defying the strange men dressed in black. But maybe that was just because he didn't get taken away in the middle of the night like Samantha and Jeffrey did. Samantha always came back scared, crying and in pain, and Jeffrey always came back docile, sleeping for days on end and sucking his thumb and asking for his mommy. Fox didn't know what they did to them. Samantha had told a little, but she didn't remember, most of the time. He tried to fight whenever they came for her, and they always hit him, knocked him right to the ground. He hated it here. He wanted to go home. 

Samantha had pressed her own hand in the cement and written her own name. Now she turned to Fox, her braids swinging underneath her knit cap. “Fox? Do you want to do it?” she said. 

Fox felt like he was closer to his sister, ever since they came here—he had to be, he had no choice, she was scared all the time—but he figured that if he refused, she'd whine and cry and get the kid all upset, too. Jeffrey was watching him with dark, serious eyes as he sucked on his non-cement-y thumb. Putting down his handprint would appease the kids. It was the little things that counted in a place like this.

And besides—an idea began to spark to life in his mind—maybe if they put their hand prints and names down, if someone came looking for them and saw it, they'd know that they'd been here. They could find them.

“Sure,” he said, and knelt down and put his hand into the cement. He wrote his name underneath it—just three letters, not a big deal.

“Let's go back,” Samantha said softly, nervously, because they knew Mr. Spender would get mad if they didn't. 

Jeffrey took Samantha's hand and they started off again. Because Fox was walking beside them and not in front of them, Jeffrey reached up and took Fox's hand in his dirty one. 

Fox looked down at the kid in surprise, but he didn't argue. He'd wanted a little brother forever, and now he had one. Which meant it was his job to protect them, even if he was annoying.

He had to figure out a way to protect Jeffrey and Samantha. They couldn't keep living like this.

\---

Teena Mulder had suspected that something like this would happen since she found out she was pregnant twelve years ago. Bill believed that Fox was his, and perhaps that could've been true, but she'd known without a doubt that it was Carl’s, and that terrified her. Carl Spender was not a man you had a child with. 

They had dated for a while, in college, and he had broken it off. He had introduced her to Bill, of all people, and they married nearly a year later, but she had broken her marriage vows in the form of one disastrous night wherein they both had too much to drink and Carl was gone before she woke up. A bad idea. She shut down the affair before it could even happen, two months before she learned she was going to have Fox, because he scared her. But he and Bill worked together, so he was always around. Would always be around. Even after he married Cassandra, he kept coming around. Teena should have known something like this would happen. She should have seen it coming. 

She wanted to fight back the night they'd told her they'd take Samantha. She daydreamed so many times of picking up and leaving in the middle of the night, guiding Fox and Samantha out to the car and driving away. But it would have never worked; the kids were too noisy and Bill had told her they'd all be killed if they resisted, and besides that, Bill never left her alone after that night in Quonochontaug because he didn't trust her. He'd always seemed so willing, so accepting that they would lost their baby girl, and she hadn't understood it. She still didn't, outside of blaming it all on the threats on their lives. (She knew Bill; when he didn't want to do something, he fought it hard. And maybe he had, and she didn't know. Or maybe he didn't care.) She didn't understand why she herself hadn't fought back until that night they had been taken. Why she had waited so long. She hadn't know when they were going to take Samantha, but she had been expecting it. But both of them… 

It ashamed her that she hadn't fought back until then, but she'd fight back now. They lied to her, they took away her children, both of them. She wouldn't stand for it. She was going to find Fox and Samantha and take them home, and she was going to put a bullet in Carl Spender's head so he could never touch her children again. The thought scared her, when it came into her mind three days after she lost them, but she held onto it and thought about it again and again, until it seemed like the only option. When she left Bill a few days after Christmas, she stole his gun and all the papers from his locked office that she could find.

\---

“Fox, I don't like it here,” said Samantha, standing in the doorway of their bedroom with her arms wrapped around herself.

She came to Fox and Jeffrey's room most nights even though she had a room to herself; she got scared to sleep alone, she used to make Fox sleep on the floor of her room after she saw a monster movie. It always drove him crazy.

Jeffrey was asleep in one of the twin beds, sucking on his thumb (a habit he carried out entirely too much), but Fox was awake. He sighed and motioned to the end of the bed, scooting up against the wall on the other end. He knew the routine. Samantha sat on the edge, pulling her knees up to her chest under her nightgown. She had to wear wear the nightgown she was wearing the night she was taken because they hadn't bought them many other clothes. A few, but not many, and not pajamas. 

“Shut up, buttmunch,” Fox said in a low voice, “they'll hear you and then we'll be in for it.” He knew they listened at night, just waiting for them to run away or say something wrong. And the punishments here were worse than a spanking or being sent to your room. 

It was January. They'd been there a month and a half, not counting the missing week between the night they'd faded into a flash of light and waking up here. Fox counted the days obsessively.

Samantha scowled at him, her hair loose and wild around her face. “I don't like it here,” she hissed, “and neither do you. I know you don't. I want to go home. We need to go home.”

Fox nodded. He knew that, he knew they needed to go home. “We need to think of a way out of here,” he said in a whisper so low that they couldn't possibly hear him (he hoped). “Us  _ and _ Jeffrey.”

Samantha nodding, resting her chin on her knees. “Fox, is he really your brother?” she asked in a small voice. 

Fox hadn't believed it when Mr. Spender had first told him that he was his father, on their third day on the base. He'd shown him some DNA thing where their DNA matched up and said it meant they were related, but Fox didn't want to hear it. He hadn't believed that Jeffrey was his brother, either—they looked nothing alike; Jeffrey's hair was light and curly while Fox’s was dark and straight, their faces looked completely different, the only thing that was similar was their eyes. And he still wasn't sure he believed it, any of it. But he guessed it didn't matter. Jeffrey thought that Fox was his brother, and the kid needed companionship in this place. He didn't seem to like his dad very much, Mr. Spender definitely didn't like him, and he was constantly asking for his mommy. If Samantha and Fox were all that the kid had, then he guessed it was up to them to take care of him. To get him out there. 

Fox nodded. Samantha looked confused—she’d asked question after question after Mr. Spender claimed to be Fox’s father, he still didn't think she completely understood—but she didn't say anything.

The kid breathed like a freight train when he slept, and it drove Fox crazy. He'd try and fall asleep so he didn't have to listen to it, but he didn't have the heart to kick Samantha out. He was too scared they'd try to take her away in the middle of the night, and he'd promised his mom that he'd take care of her. Years ago, he yanked her out of the ocean to keep her from drowning. He was used to this stuff.

“Stay here,” he told Samantha, and he went across the hall into her room. They weren't supposed to move around freely during the night, but they did anyway, the doors were always unlocked. But they weren't able to leave the house, the doors were always locked and so were the windows. Fox had tried them all that first week and Mr. Spender had caught him and given him an amused look that sent chills up and down Fox’s spine. He went into Samantha's room and took the blanket and pillow from her bed. He went back across the hall and sat down on the rug. “You can sleep up there,” he told his sister. 

Samantha climbed in bed and pulled the covers up to her chin. “What's going to happen to us, Fox?” she said in a tearful voice that sounded like she was going to cry. 

Fox lay down on his back, face turned up towards the ceiling. “We're going to get out of here,” he said, quietly again. He hoped they couldn't hear. “And then we're gonna go home.”

He just had to come up with a plan. 

\---

Teena stayed with her friend in Martha's Vineyard for a few weeks after she left Bill, until she had a plan. She packed up the car she'd bought with cash pilfered from Bill's office and drove down the east coast. 

She got a hotel room in Connecticut, with a series of skeptical looks from the hotel manager. She ignored it. She settled into the room, lit a cigarette and stacked Bill’s papers on top of the table. It had been over twelve years, barring this one month, since she'd had a quiet night to herself, but in the absence of noise, she found that she hated it. She missed the flickering of the TV and the clatter of game pieces, Samantha crying after a nightmare and Fox trying to sneak out and play with his friends, Fox and Samantha's bickering. She never thought she'd miss Fox and Samantha's bickering. She must be going crazy.

What she was hoping for was information on Cassandra Spender. Carl’s wife. She knew that the woman had disappeared in October, and at the time, she hadn't thought much about it, lost in concern for Samantha. But now she was thinking about it. She knew that Cassandra and Carl had a young son. Jeffrey. What had happened to him? Had he been taken, too? His father was there so rarely and showed such little paternal affection towards the boy; she had her doubts that he was still at home without his mother. He must have been taken. Was there a place where they kept all the children? Were Fox and Samantha there?

Her plan was to go to Carl Spender's house. She knew he and Cassandra lived down in DC, and she'd gotten the address from Bill's office. If she found Cassandra there, safe, she'd try to get the other woman's help in finding her kids. (Teena and Cassandra hadn't hit it off when their husbands forced them to interact, but they had one thing in common, outside of both having had Carl father their son: they were both mothers. And she knew that Cassandra was close to her son, closer than she was to hers, even—the one time she'd met the child, a year ago, he'd clung to his mother the entire time and she'd coddled him horribly.) If she found Carl there, she would threaten him until he told her where her children was. She knew exactly where Bill’s gun was, in her purse. She had never liked guns, but she could do it if she had to and she told herself she did. She did have to. She must.

She was not afraid, she told herself, not really. She'd do anything to get her children home. 

She waved away the cigarette smoke, tapping it into the ashtray on the table. The sensation was familiar and comforting, but the scent drove her crazy. It reminded her of Carl. Just a few minutes of thinking about him, and she was angered all over again. At Carl, at Bill, at the people who had driven them to this. How could he do this, take a job with so much secrecy, a job that tore their family apart? He said he was doing it for their country, but she didn't understand why their country would take her children away like this. 

Her mother would be horrified if she knew what she was doing. Her daughter handling a gun, going to confront the man she had an affair with so she could take her children back and move them far away without their father. Scandalous, she'd say. We raised you better than this, Christina. Teena wondered if anyone had expected her life to turn out like this. She knew she hadn't expected it of herself.

When the clock hit 8:30, Samantha's bedtime (and Fox's when he was being naughty or just overly annoying), and there were no children to put to bed, she burst into tears. Went into the bathroom and sat on top of the closed toilet, dabbing at her eyes with toilet paper. Her lipstick smudged the paper like blood.

\---

Mr. Spender used to be able to get Jeffrey to come quietly. He would just say, “It's time to go, Jeffrey,” and Jeffrey would take his hand and walk off, casting looks over his shoulder at Fox and Samantha where they watched. Fox used to judge the poor kid for that. But that had all changed when they started to take Samantha. She'd screamed and kicked, every single time, and Fox had tried and failed to fight them off and Jeffrey had huddled in the corner with huge, frightened eyes. Now he hid in the corner, shaking his head, when the men came for them. His father didn't try to coax; he'd just scoop him up and carry him off while Jeffrey kicked and cried out for his mother. Fox felt sorry for the kids, both of them. He had no idea what they did to them, but he knew it couldn't be good. And he hated the men for doing it to them.  _ That's my sister,  _ he'd always think, furious with his cheek red and stinging as he lay on the floorboards.  _ They're just little kids, you can't do this to them. _

“I think they're going to come tonight,” Samantha said one day after lunch. They were sitting in the boys’ room, and Jeffrey was playing with model cars on the rug, making an engine sound with his mouth. Technically, Fox and Samantha were supposed to be playing, too, but neither of them were. (Fox didn't play with toys a lot anymore. He'd told Jeffrey that if they were ever at Quonochontaug, he'd take him into the woods and show him a  _ real _ good time.) Samantha was turning a car over and over in her hand, and she looked scared. 

Fox chewed his lower lip, looking out the winter. The sky was gray, although it wasn't snowing and it wasn't that cold outside. Not as cold as Massachusetts got. All he knew was that they were somewhere warm. “What if I go?” he said. “Instead of you? What if I make them take me?”

Samantha shook her head. “You don't want to do that, Fox,” she said. “It hurts. You won't like it.”

“It's not about  _ liking  _ it,” said Fox with some frustration. “It's about protecting you and Jeff.”

Jeffrey rumbled like a car engine and ran the car into Fox’s leg. Fox picked it up and set it down on the other side. The kid crawled over him to get the car, and it was annoying, but it made Fox feel strangely sad. How could this kid’s own father want to do painful tests on him? He was annoying, but he was kind of cute too. He should be in kindergarten, singing dumb songs and coloring pictures.

“Okay,” Samantha said in a small voice. She sounded sad and frightened.  _ I'm afraid, Fox,  _ she'd said months ago when she woke him up to the sounds of their parents fighting. Months later, Fox still wondered if they'd been fighting over this, him and Samantha coming here.

Fox nodded. “Okay,” he said. “So you and Jeffrey need to hide in the closet when they come up here. Hold the door closed and don't come out for anything until we're gone.” He chewed his lower lip. “If I can see what's going on, I can make a plan to get us out of here. Okay?”

Samantha nodded again, her lower lip trembling.  _ Crybaby, _ Fox thought on instinct before he caught himself; he couldn't make fun of her anymore, not here, and besides, it wasn't like he hadn't cried himself. “What if they pull the closet open?” she asked.

“I won't let them,” he said. “I'll fight them off.”

“You're not very good at that.”

He glared at her, brotherly affection gone, and she shrugged innocently. “Well, you're not,” she said. “They're bigger, anyways, and that one time you got into a fight with Kenny Johnson, he kicked your ass.”

“Well, I'll try, then,” Fox snapped. “Just hold the door closed.”

Tears gathered in Samantha's eyes. “Okay,” she said quietly. 

Jeffrey tugged at her sleeve. “Wanna race, Samantha?” he asked. She nodded, wiping her eyes on her sleeve, and they crouched on the rug and raced the cars back and forth. 

Fox walked to the window and looked outside. All he could see were soldiers pacing around, other kids playing in their front yards. He wondered if they were prisoners, too. The soldiers made him mad. They were supposed to protect him, not put him in more danger. 

When the men came for Samantha that night, she and Jeffrey hid in the closet like he said. Fox could hear Jeffrey crying inside and Samantha hushing him like she still playing babysitter. He stood in front of the door like he was a lot braver than he felt. When the men came and asked where the girl was, he said, “No,” in his bravest voice. His Imitating Dad When He's Mad voice.

The one in the front laughed. “No?” he said. “Come on, kid, you know how this goes.”

“Take me this time,” he said, and wished he didn't sound scared, like he was a little kid or something. He was privately disgusted with himself. He needed to be brave. “They've gone enough. It's my turn.” He scowled at them and hoped he was intimidating.

“You sure about that, kid?” said one of the men in the back. He sounded like he was gonna laugh at him. “You don't seem thrilled about it.”

He could still hear Jeff whimpering in the closet. The poor goddamn kid was so scared he was crying. “Yes, I'm sure,” he said bravely. “Take me and leave them.”

“You don't have to, Fox.” And then Mr. Spender was in the doorway, a cigarette in his hand. “You're my first born son, you know,” he said. “You're protected. I made sure of that.”

“Then why did you bring me here?” Fox snapped. “If you don't wanna do tests on me?”

Mr. Spender took a long drag. “I wanted you to get to know your family,” he said generously.

Fox's face turned red with anger. He felt like he did right before he punched Kenny Johnson. He wanted to punch that stupid man in the face. “You are not. My family,” he hissed. “You took me away from my family.”

“My goodness, Fox.” Mr. Spender took another drag. “If you miss your mommy that much, I can go and get her for you.” The men with him chuckled. 

Fox balled his hands into fists by his side, his neck hot with embarrassment. “Don't call me that,” he snapped. “Call me Mulder.” He'd always hated his stupid name, and he hated it even more when Mr. Spender said it. He hated his name, he hated Mr. Spender, he hated his dad for bringing Mr. Spender around. It made him feel like a little kid, but he wanted to go home. 

Mr. Spender's face turned a little red. “Call you Mulder?” he snapped right back. “That's ridiculous, boy. You have no connection to Bill Mulder. You are  _ not  _ a Mulder.”

“I am a Mulder!” Fox shouted. “And you are  _ not _ my father. I don't care what your stupid DNA tests say.”

Mr. Spender's face turned purple. “Take him,” he said to the men, and they grabbed onto Fox’s skinny arms hard. He thrashed around on instinct, but they were much stronger than him. Mr. Spender leaned in close. His breath smelled horrible, stinking of old cigarettes. “I just want you to know, boy,” he said quietly, “that you asked for this. There's no turning back now.”

Fox gulped. He wanted to change his mind in that moment, but he heard Samantha and Jeffrey crying in the closet and he couldn't say a word. He had to be the brave big brother. He had to protect him.

They took him away, the way they'd been taking his sister away. 

\---

When he was taken back to his room, he couldn't remember anything from his time. He'd seen more of the base, the tall chain-link fence surrounded it, and how many people there were. But he couldn't remember what they did to him, the tests. 

He woke up on the bed he slept on (he wouldn't call it  _ his _ ), aching all over. “Hi, Fox,” Samantha said sadly. She and Jeffrey were sitting on the rug in a pile of toys and picture books. Jeffrey was sucking his thumb again; he looked up at Fox with big, nervous eyes. 

“Hi,” Fox mumbled. He felt like his mouth was filled with cotton balls. He wanted to sleep for twenty years.

“Are you okay?” Samantha asked, wiping her nose with the back of her hand. 

Fox swallowed a few times and tried to sit up. “We're getting out of here,” he said grimly, wincing and lowering himself back onto the pillows. “I have an idea.”

\---

At the Spender's house, Teena didn't find Carl. She found the house nearly empty, furniture dusty, rooms hollow. And in one room, lying prone on the floor, she found Cassandra. 

She lay like she was asleep, her light hair spread out behind her. She looked like a princess in that tattered fairy tale book Samantha love so dearly. Teena knelt beside her calmly, feeling for her pulse. It was there, beating strongly against her fingers. Teena removed her hand and began shaking her shoulder briskly. “Cassandra, you must wake up,” she said. Using her first name felt awkward in her mouth, so she added, “Mrs. Spender.”

Cassandra began to stir, stretching slowly. “Hmm,” she grunted. 

“It's Teena Mulder,” said Teena. “Bill's wife?” The words felt bizarre in her mouth. She didn't feel like Bill’s wife anymore. She hadn't felt like Bill’s wife for years. 

Cassandra blinked owlishly. “Teena?” she said faintly. 

“Yes,” Teena said impatiently. “Can you sit up?”

Cassandra lifted her hand to wipe her forehead. “There was… a light,” she said faintly. “Carl took me to an air base with a lot of other people, and then I saw a light… I was abducted…” She bolted up, her hand closing on Teena’s arm. “Jeffrey! Where's Jeffrey?”

“He's not here,” Teena said, annoyed and trying to hide it. “And neither is Carl.”

Cassandra struggled to sit up, leaning against the wall. “Carl told me that his employers were forcing us to participate in experiments,” she said. “He said he had to let them take me or they'd hurt Jeffrey. He said that if we all cooperated, it'd be better for us, and that they were testing him, too.” 

Fury flickered through Teena on the other woman's behalf. She didn't know much about Bill's work, but she at least knew that Carl wasn't being tested. Carl had deceived Cassandra as much as he had her. Her husband had lied to her and taken her children away from her, too. Jeffrey had to be wherever Samantha and Fox were, she just knew it. “He lied to you,” she said calmly. “He conspired with my husband to give my children to the same cause. He made sure that Fox and Samantha were taken, but he's in no danger at all.”

Cassandra paled further. “Your children were taken?” she said with horror. “Dear little Fox and Samantha?”

“Yes,” Teena replied with a weary sigh. “He convinced Bill to give them up.” Easier to leave all the details where she thought it would be only her daughter and came home to find them both gone out of the story. “And I'm certain that he took your son to wherever he has them.”

“Oh, god,” Cassandra moaned, pressing her face into her skirt where her knees were drawn up to her body. “My poor baby.”

Teena stood, disappointment coursing through her. It was clear that Cassandra couldn't give her any immediate answers on her children's whereabouts. She'd have to care for the woman before she could figure anything else out. “I'll get you some water, Cassandra,” she said, and went into the kitchen. 

While she was filling one of the tall crystal glasses with tap water, she saw it on the counter. A piece of paper with Carl’s overly neat handwriting on it, along with a plane ticket to Sacramento, California. 

Teena took the glass of water to Cassandra, along with the note. “Your husband has left you instructions,” she said. “He wants you to fly to Sacramento, California and call him at the airport. He says that his employers have instructed him to take Jeffrey to April Air Base, a couple of hours away, and he wants you to be together there.” She said the last few words with a hint of disgust. He had Fox there with him, if not Samantha, too. His ego wouldn't let him leave the son he'd never been able to get his hands on alone. He wanted Cassandra to raise her children, to replace her; how disgraceful. 

“He has Jeffrey there with him, they're running tests on him… you said he's in on it?” Cassandra said with horror. But not with doubt. Teena sensed that Cassandra was someone who could easily be deceived, but she also sensed that the Spenders’ marriage was not a happy one. “That bastard,” she added with enough animosity to confirm Teena's suspicions. “I knew he never cared for us the way I wanted him to, but I never thought he'd… hurt us…” She made a choking sound and buried her face in her hands.

Teena put a hand on Cassandra's shoulder stiffly. She was horrible at comforting people; she'd learned to comfort Fox and Samantha, who were both horribly clingy as young children when they'd get hurt, but she'd never been able to comfort her girlfriends after they'd been upset over some trivial-seeming thing, back when she had girlfriends. “I know it must be hard to believe, but your husband isn't who you think he is,” she said. “I'm positive he has your son at April Air Base. He'd have no reason to lie to you because you didn't know what he was doing until I told you. And I suspect that he has my son and daughter there as well.”

Cassandra looked up at her with teary blue eyes. “I have to get Jeffrey away from him,” she said. 

Teena nodded. “We have to go to California,” she said. 

\---

Fox had a plan. He explained it to Jeffrey and Samantha as they went on one of their walks on a particularly cold day. Jeffrey wasn't really listening; he was grabbing armfuls of leaves and throwing them up in the air. “Fox, look!” he said excitedly. “Samantha! Leaves, look!”

Samantha was staring at him incredulously. “Fox, your plan is crazy,” she pronounced. 

“Is not,” Fox said stubbornly, like they were arguing over something that didn't matter. “Do you have any better ideas?”

“No, but your idea isn't the best idea in the world!” she protested, making a face at her. Jeffrey, off in his own little world as usual, threw a handful of leaves at Samantha that got tangled up in her curly hair. She brushed them away impatiently and said, “I think we need a better idea. Something that will work.”

“What's the plan again, Fox?” Jeffrey asked, blinking up at them with huge little-kid eyes. 

As annoying as the kid was, Fox couldn't help but admit that it was nice to have someone who hero-worshipped him. Samantha certainly didn't. “Well,” he said. “We're gonna barricade ourselves in our room by pushing the bed against the door. So no one can get in.”

“How are we gonna lift the bed? Are you a super-strong man?” Jeffrey looked excited, bouncing up and down on his toes.

Samantha burst into giggles behind her mittened hands. Fox rolled his eyes, ignoring her, and said, “No, Jeff, we're gonna slide it. And maybe the other bed, too.”

Samantha laughed harder, nearly bent in half, until she saw the cluster of soldiers on the corner, staring at them. Fox motioned for her to be quiet and she stopped, standing up straight and pressing her mittens against her mouth. Jeffrey was still bouncing up and down beside them; he started to say, “Are you sure you can't lift the b—” but Fox put a hand over his mouth and Samantha grabbed his hand and dragged him down the street. They'd learned pretty quick that talking about escaping and being overheard was a bad idea. They looked suspicious enough now anyway.

Fox had tried to escape four times in the first two weeks they'd been there, and it had never ended well. He wasn't sure why this time was going to be any different, except for the fact that he had an actual plan this time. And he wanted to believe it would work. He  _ had _ to believe it would. 

When they got out of earshot again, to the spot where they'd put their hands in the cement, Fox started speaking again. “We're gonna barricade the door,” he said. “And then we're gonna climb out the window. And we'll run. They'll be so focused on trying to get into the room that they won't notice that we're breaking out.”

“The windows are always locked,” Samantha said in her annoying-little-sister voice. “Aren't they gonna notice if we break the window?”

Fox hadn't thought of that. “We'll, uh,” he said. “I'll stand behind the door and make a bunch of noise to distract them while you take Jeffrey and run away.”

Samantha screwed up her face like she was going to cry; she could turn the waterworks on and off incredibly fast. “So you're not going to come with us?” she asked in a shaky voice, and she wasn't doing it to be petty, she really was scared. Jeffrey snatched her hand, hiding his face behind her. “We have to go alone?”

“No, no,” Fox said, shaking his head. “Sam, don't be stupid. I'm not gonna let you go alone.” Samantha's lower lip was trembling, so Fox made his voice be nice, the way he did when his mom made him apologize. “Samantha, I just want to distract them so you and Jeff can get out. But I'm coming,” he said in his nicest voice possible. “I'm coming. I promise. Don't be a baby about it.”

Samantha sniffled, wiping her eyes. “And then we're going to go home?”

“Yeah,” Fox said, although hell if he knew how they were going to get to Martha's Vineyard from wherever they were. (Somewhere in California, he thought. Maybe. Maybe.) “You and me and Jeff are gonna go home. Right, Jeff?”

“Is Daddy coming with us?” Jeffrey said in a small voice. 

“No,” Fox snapped. “Definitely not.”

Jeffrey hid his face in Samantha's coat again. “I want Mommy,” he said. “I don't wanna be alone.” Meaning, Fox assumed, that Jeffrey didn't want to stay with his dad but he also didn't want to be without parents, without any authority figure in his life.

“You're not going to be alone, Jeffy,” Samantha said in her playing-big-sister voice, tousling his hair. “We're going to be with you. And Fox will take care of us.”

Fox got the sense that Jeffrey didn't like his father too much, but he also knew it had to be hard for the kid to leave the only parent he had left. He was only a baby, for shit’s sake, a kindergarten baby. “I want  _ Mommy, _ ” Jeffrey said into Samantha's coat, sniffling. 

“Hey, Jeff,” Fox said, using the Nice Voice again. “We're gonna find your mom, okay? I promise.” He actually remembered Jeffrey's mom, Mrs. Spender; he'd met her once, a willowy blonde woman that reminded him of one of those hippie girls in his class. Dad had introduced her as Mrs. Spender, so she had to be Jeffrey's mom, right? His dad would know how to find her. 

Jeffrey sniffled again, rubbed his fists with his eyes before inserting his thumb into his mouth. His curls stuck up in a way that reminded Fox of pictures of a baby owl in his science textbook. “Okay,” he mumbled. 

Samantha tugged at his sleeve. “Fox,” she said in the same voice she'd used the night of the abduction. She pointed over his shoulder. “Fox, they're _ watching _ .”

He looked over his shoulder and saw a cluster of men across the street. Some soldiers, some not, all watching them. “Let's go back, guys,” he said firming

They walked back to the house, Samantha grabbing his hand in her wool-covered one, and Jeffrey grabbing his other hand in his tiny tear-soaked one. Fox held them without protest, because he could hear his mother saying,  _ That's what a big brother does. _

\---

“You know Carl very well,” said Cassandra. “Don't you.” It wasn't a question.

Teena was driving them to the airport. Cassandra sat in the passenger’s seat, dress smoothed over her knees, ticket clutched in one hand and her purse in the other. She was still too pale, too thin. She was wearing large sunglasses to hide the dark circles under her eyes. 

Teena inhaled in a huff, staring out the window. She had never told anyone about this, and the idea was slightly horrifying. Admit her infidelity? She couldn't possibly. But maybe she had to, to make the other woman understand.

She took a few deep breaths before speaking. “Carl and I had an affair,” she said. “Long before he ever met you. He… he's Fox’s father. No one knows but him and I.”

Cassandra didn't say anything directly after. Teena didn't say a word, staring hard out of the window. She wouldn't apologize or grovel. There had been no one she had hurt with that affair but Bill, and she doubted he knew. If she had nothing else—not her children or her house or her husband—then she at least had her dignity. And she would hold onto that. 

“I'm not surprised,” Cassandra said finally. “He only married me because we were going to have Jeffrey, you know. I sensed that he… cared for me, in a way, but there's little love in our marriage. And he always was visiting you and Bill up at Quonochontaug. I sensed a certain attachment to the both of you.”

“I sense that attachment had more to do with my son,” said Teena. (Her son. Hers. That was what she had told him when Fox was a baby. He would never be Fox’s father; she had determined that the day Fox was born, red-faced and squalling and adorable.) “But I have none to him. He's nothing to me. Bill is the only father Fox knows.”

They were quiet for a moment, driving down the road. Teena loved driving. She wished that she had a cigarette. 

The lighter flicked next to her, as if Cassandra had read her mind. The window crank creaked as she rolled it down. “Want one?” she asked, and Teena nodded. She held her hand out, parting her fingers to hold the cigarette, and remembered when her friend Holly had taught her to smoke as a girl. They'd walked to the edge of the lake in their neighborhood and smoked until their lungs burned. Teena pretended she was sophisticated like the women on TV, Lucy Ricardo in her fancy dresses and her fancy New York apartment and show biz husband. Silly girlhood daydreams. The cigarette was hot in her hands.

“I saw the gun in your purse,” Cassandra said quietly. “You're going to kill him, aren't you? My husband.”

He'd taken her children. He wanted claim to her son. He'd ruined her life in one stroke; the only good thing he ever gave her was Fox. Teena swallowed, took a drag on the cigarette. “Yes,” she said in an exhale, and the smoke came out in a thin line. “I might. If I can… get up the courage.”

Out of the corner of her eye, she watched Cassandra take a drag. “I think that'd be okay,” she said. “If what you said is true. He's a rat bastard, and he hurt my son. I don't think I'd mind if you killed him.”

Two women in a car discussing murder as if it were what they were eating for dinner.  _ Scandalous,  _ Teena heard her mother say.  _ Horrifying. _

_ Her son _ , Teena thought; that was what Cassandra had said.  _ Hers. _ They were both taking ownership. Erasing Carl Spender from their lives. Taking their sons away from him. This was their right as mothers, to take their sons back. (And her daughter.)

Bill’s gun could make that permanent. Make sure Carl never came for their children again.

\---

Samantha had a compartment behind her bookshelf where she kept a diary, the way she had at home. “So people can know what happened to us here,” she said defensively, as if Fox was going to make fun of keeping a diary here. (He thought about it, but he didn't. Things were bad enough without them fighting.) “You can hide stuff here.”

Fox stole some stuff from the kitchen while Mr. Spender was gone and the guard was asleep after finishing a bottle of whiskey. He picked the lock on the drawer of knives like his best friend Owen had taught him to, and took three of them. He also took food from the pantry. He stashed it all in the compartment, keeping the knives in those little plastic things they were kept in, stuffed it in Samantha's pillowcase and tied it at the top. He put the diary in, too. 

They planned it for three nights from then. Samantha had learned to time the times they were taken, and she told Fox that they'd be coming for Jeffrey in three nights. Jeffrey didn't assist a lot in the planning; he played with his toys, he sat on Fox's bed and read his books or napped. Fox tried to teach Samantha how to fight in the moments before the escape. She had a wicked right hook, but she didn't have a lot of force behind it. Probably because she was a scrawny third grader. “You should bite if you need to,” he said. She had most of her grown-up teeth now, which probably hurt more. “Bites can be very powerful and painful.” 

“Is that what you did with Kenny?” Samantha said in a mocking voice, baring her teeth at herself in the grimy, small mirror that had been left in her room. (Her room had a lot more effort in it than the boy's room; it had floral wallpaper and everything.) “Bite him?”

“Shut up, squirt,” Fox said with annoyance. Samantha stuck her tongue out at him. “Not _ everything _ is about my fight with Kenny.”

“A fight that you  _ lost _ ,” said Samantha pointedly. “And Kenny is much smaller than these guys! You can't win in a fight against them, and neither can I.”

Fox huffed irritably, blowing air out of his mouth. “That's why we're not  _ fighting _ ,” he said. “We're  _ running. _ ”

They didn't say anything else. Samantha bared her teeth again, the clicking sound too loud in the room. 

Fox poked at the pillowcase, feeling for the knife. Yeah, that was probably their best chance. The knife.

\---

They got to Sacramento late at night, Cassandra and Teena. Cassandra kept the note Carl had left her in her pocket, but she ignored the instructions to call him. They only consulted the address he'd left: April Air Base. Teena rented a car with cash to drive the couple of hours it would take to get the the base.

On the drive, Cassandra asked her, “What's your plan?”

Drumming her fingers on the steering wheel (horridly ragged nails, she hadn't had a manicure in months and she chewed them when she was nervous), Teena said, “Go to the air base, I suppose. Confront Carl. Try to find our children.” She had no idea how they were going to get in. She had no idea where they'd go after this. They'd have to hide, she guessed, but where? Where would Cassandra and Jeffrey go?

“And what if there are guards?” Cassandra asked, her tone fearful and icy. 

Teena didn't have an answer for her. She clutched the wheel harder. 

“I don't think this is over,” said Cassandra. “They're going to come for me again, I just know it. And maybe even Jeffrey. Killing Carl won't change that. The aliens will never stop coming, their plan is so much bigger than this.”

“Aliens?” Teena replied in an icy tone. God, she felt like she was talking to Fox, with his science fiction novels and his ghost stories he always told to terrify his sister. Utterly ridiculous. “What in the name of heaven do aliens have to do with this, of all things?”

“Oh, everything, Mrs. Mulder,” Cassandra said sincerely, nodding her head. “Absolutely everything.”

Teena didn't dignify that with an answer. “All I want is my children back. I'm sure you feel the same, Mrs. Spender.”

“Of course.” She nodded again. “My poor baby.”

Teena drove to April Air Base, her teeth clenched. She just wanted this to be over. She wanted it all back, Samantha's sticky fingers and Fox tracking mud all over the house and their arguments and the TV too loud and singing along to the radio and days on the beach. She thought of the gun. She thought of the night Bill had gotten drunk and taught her to shoot, his arms around her as he aimed the gun in her hands.

\---

They ate dinner with Mr. Spender the night of their escape, like always, and Fox was terrified that one of the kids was gonna let it slip. Aside from Samantha's horrible poker face, no one let it slip, luckily. Jeffrey was quiet as usual, refusing to eat and making elaborate sculptures with his mashed potatoes, and Samantha and Fox spoke in their usual stiff, clipped tones. As few words as possible. They didn't want to talk to him. Mr. Spender smoked, even with dinner, and watched them with amusement, sent them to bed without dessert. Samantha and Jeffrey went running to their rooms, feet pounding the floorboards hard. Fox trailed after them, looking nervously over his shoulder. He was so scared he felt as if he was going to throw up. Could they really do this?

Samantha got the bag from her room and skittered across the hall to his room. Fox filled his and Jeffrey's pillowcases with balled-up clothes from the trunks Mr. Spender had filled for them. He hated the clothes, but they'd need clothes. Jeffrey held his teddy in his hand, the one with the missing eye, watching them curiously. 

Samantha crouched in front of Jeffrey and made sure his coat was buttoned. Fox shrugged his own coat on begrudgingly. He braided Samantha's hair quickly so it wouldn't be in the way, the way he usually did when their mom was too busy, and handed each of them a pillow case to carry. “You ready?” he asked them both quietly. Samantha, frightened but determined, nodded. Jeffrey let the pillow case drop, clutched the teddy and inserted his thumb in his mouth. 

Fox closed the door. He went to one side of the bed, and Samantha went to the other. Pushing together, they managed to move the bed a few inches. It scraped horribly over the floorboards. “Children?” called Mr. Spender in his snake’s voice. “What are you up to?” 

Fox pushed harder, determination strengthening. Samantha's arms strained as she pulled, her face red with effort. The bed moved further, closer to the door. “Children?” Mr. Spender called again. “Jeffrey, you have more testing in twenty minutes. What are you up to?”

Jeffrey whimpered around his thumb. The Mulder children put all of their effort forth, and the bed butted up against the door, thumping against the wood.  _ Barricade, _ Fox thought with satisfaction. 

“Children!” Mr. Spender's footsteps were suddenly pounding. 

Fox pulled a rock out of his pillowcase. He'd pilfered it on a trip outside. “Stand back,” he told the kids, and Samantha shuffled Jeffrey back. Fox hurled the rock at the window, and it shattered on impact. 

“Boy!” Mr. Spender was on the other side of the door, pounding on it, trying to open it. Samantha threw herself against the mattress in an attempt to keep it from opening. 

Fox wrapped his hand in a sheet and went to knock the glass out of the window. The door creaked horribly; he didn't think the bed could hold it. The glass scraped him through the sheet, but he kept pushing until all of it was gone. In a panic, he threw himself out of the empty window pane. He hit the ground hard, his ribs shrieking in protest even though he hasn't fallen far. 

“Fox?” Samantha ran to the window, her face white. 

He stumbled to his feet. “Give me Jeffrey,” he said, holding out his arms.

“Boy, you're going to regret this!” Mr. Spender roared. “I am your father!”

Fox couldn't resist it. “Fuck you!” he shouted, the forbidden F-word. Samantha gasped. Jeffrey crawled out of the window and Fox grabbed him before he could hit the ground. He was heavy as shit, but Fox didn't let go; they'd be faster if he carried the kid. 

The door opened a few inches and Samantha shrieked. “Come on!” Fox shouted, stumbling back from the window. Samantha leapt out of the window, actually landing on her feet and hands like a cat. She got to her feet and started to run. Fox, holding his brother up, took off after her. 

They could hear Mr. Spender's shouts behind them. An alarm began to wail. 

Fox lead Samantha behind the houses, ducking away from windows. Someone saw them running and shouted. Fox ducked behind a tree. Jeffrey was crying, still clutching the teddy bear; Fox could feel the soggy fabric against his shirt. Samantha hid with them, shaking hard. “Fox, what are we going to do?” she demanded. “They're gonna catch us!”

Fox was scared, his heart pounding hard, and his arms hurt from holding Jeff up. He wanted to tell Samantha to get the knife, but he didn't want to put Jeff down. “We're going to keep running,” he said with no confidence. He could hear more shouts in the background, warnings that they were escaping. “We're going to keep running, and…”

A dark figure rounded the trees, coming up to them. Samantha shrieked, and the man clapped a hand over her mouth. “Don't touch her!” Fox shouted. He wanted to punch the man, hurt him, but he would have to let go of Jeffrey and he couldn't do that. They were going to take his sister again.

“Shhh,” the man hissed. He leaned closer, and Fox didn't recognize his face, but he looked kinder then most of the grown ups he'd met here. “My name is Ronald,” he said. “And I want you kids to get out of here.” He let go of Samantha, who was crying softly, and handed her something that Fox vaguely recognized. 

“Bolt cutters,” said Ronald. “Cut a hole in the fence and get out of here. The fence is that way.” He pointed towards the field before them. 

Samantha was quivering, clearly terrified, but she managed a stammering, “T-t-thank you,” just like their mom had taught her. And then she was running, holding the bolt cutters away from her like giant scissors. Fox didn't stay back to thank the Ronald guy; he took off running after her. His arms were shaking with the effort of holding up Jeffrey, but Jeffrey was helping by clinging hard to his neck. Fox sprinted towards the fence, his lungs burning. 

When he got to the fence, Samantha was trying to cut it clumsily and making little progress. Fox set Jeffrey down—his muscles practically sighed with relief—and hissed, “Here, let me,” as he took them. He wasn't much stronger than Samantha, but he managed to cut a good-sized hole that they could crawl through with several minutes of work.

“Fox!” Samantha said, panicked. “They're coming!”

Yes, there were the telltale shouts of pursuers behind them. Fox shoved the chain link away and pushed his way through. Samantha and Jeffrey were right on his heels. The cut wire scraped at them all, but not too badly. He couldn't pick up Jeffrey again; he clutched his brother’s hand in one hand and his sister's hand in the other and began to run again. 

They'd been running for a few minutes, no destination clear in Fox's mind, when a car came up the road near them, the headlights sweeping the road. It seemed to slow as it saw them. “Fox!” Samantha whimpered. 

_ It can't be,  _ Fox thought, watching the car slow.  _ It can't be but it has to be…  _

Fox skidded to a stop at the same time the car did, intending to turn around and run the other way, but a woman came out of the car before he could. “Jeffrey!” she was shrieking. “Jeffrey!”

Jeffrey's tiny hand let go of Fox's. “Mommy!” he shouted, and he ran at the woman and jumped up into her arms. 

Stunned, Fox and Samantha stood on the sidewalk, staring at the woman.  _ Mrs. Spender,  _ some distant part of Fox's mind supplied. She was cuddling Jeffrey close, crying and stroking his curls and saying, “Oh, honey, oh, honey…” over and over again. 

The passenger side of the car opened and someone stepped out. It took a few beats for Fox to recognize her, but he did. It was his mother, her hair a wild mess, her lower lip trembling. “Mommy!” Samantha yelped, and she let go of Fox's hand and ran for her. 

Fox trailed behind his sister, genuinely stunned to the core. He hadn't thought his parents would come for them, especially not his mom. She barely left the house, how could she come here, to wherever they were?

His mom was already embracing Samantha, weeping in that dignified way she had—nothing like Cassandra's wretching sobs. “My baby,” she was saying, stroking Samantha's curly hair, “my baby.” Samantha was hugging back, clinging, and Fox slunk up beside them, hands in his pockets. His mom saw him over Samantha's head and reached out to embrace him, so hard that his sore ribs screamed in protest, but the hug felt too good to protest. It was easy to forget how good it felt to be hugged by your mother when you were twelve, and you had an reputation to keep. 

On instinct, Fox wriggled away the way he did whenever his mom made him hug people on holidays, saying, “Mom, I'm fine,” but then something registered in his mind: the wailing of the sirens in the background. They were still looking for them, and he didn't want to go back. He couldn't go back.

Tears welled up in his eyes, like he really was a little kid, and his mom didn't even say that he was too old to cry. “Oh, Fox,” she said, hugging him again. Fox let the tears fall because he couldn't help it, even hugged her back. He saw his sister watching him in the dim light of the streetlamp, but she didn't even call him a baby. 

Over his mom's shoulder, he saw Mrs. Spender scoop up Jeffrey and carry him back to the car. His mother let go, gave Samantha a kiss on top of her head, and said, “Go get in the car, children.”

Samantha ran to the backseat of the car, braids whapping against her shoulder. Fox started to follow—questions bubbling up in his mind about where was his dad (who he guessed wasn't really his dad, but who was still very much Samantha's dad), why did Mr. Spender claim to be his dad, how the you-know-what did she know Mr. Spender—when he saw the aforementioned creep heading up the road. “Mom,” he said, tugging at his mother's skirt. 

“Fox, what is i—” She seemed to see the man, too. Her hand came down on his shoulder, long nails digging in through his jacket. “Fox, I want you to get into the car,” she said in a dangerously quiet tone. “Take your sister and get down on the floorboards. Don't look up for anything.”

"But Mom, what about you?” he insisted. He had to protect Samantha and even Jeffrey as their big brother, but didn't moms fall into that?  _ Take care of your mother,  _ his not-father always said before he left on a business trip, and Fox always tried. 

“Don't worry about that,” his mom snapped. Mr. Spender was getting closer. “Go get in the car. Now.”

Fox went to the car. He crouched on the floor even though it was really, really uncomfortable and pulled Samantha down even though she hissed protests. Jeffrey whimpered into his mother's stomach. Mrs. Spender was watching out the window with a great deal of worry on her face. “I should go out there,” she said finally, and went about trying to detach the clinging five-year-old. 

Fox popped his head up like a gopher. Outside, he could see his mom and Mr. Spender standing across from each other. It looked like they were just talking, but who knew how that would end? “Mrs. Spender, you should give Jeff to me,” he said. “Since I'm his brother.”

Mrs. Spender looked troubled by that, and Fox wondered if maybe she didn't know. But she handed Jeffrey over into the back seat, who immediately started clinging to Fox instead. Fox sighed and ducked his head back down like his mom said. This kid was a real anaconda; if he ever ended up taking Jeffrey back to Quonochontaug, they'd have to work on that. 

Mrs. Spender snatched something up and got out of the car, and Fox knew he had to be dreaming or something because the thing she grabbed from his mother's purse looked an awful lot like his father's gun. 

\---

Teena saw Carl approaching, and she stood her ground after sending Fox away. It was time. After all these years, it was time to confront him. She was going to be brave. 

She remembered the night he and Bill told her that they were taking her baby away, the way her hand had felt cracking across his cheek. She remembered the night they spent together over twelve years ago, her horror at waking up alone (of course, he didn't have the courage to face sleeping with a married woman) and discovering what they'd done. She didn't love Bill, not anymore, but she'd hated herself at the time for betraying him. She had felt absolutely horrified. What would her mother think?

“Teena,” said Carl grandly. “Nice to see you again.”

She spoke evenly and not hysterically. “You took my children,” she said. 

“You know that at least one of them would be taken,” he said casually. “Did you plan to come for me when it was just Samantha?”

Teena bit her lower lip. She hadn't, and he knew it. “I was scared,” she said in her defense. “Of what would happen to me… or to Fox… if I interfered. You and Bill told me that they wouldn't kill us, wouldn't kill  _ Fox, _ if Samantha was taken. But you lied to me. You took them both.”

“Does a father have no right to his son?”

“You are not his father,” Teena hissed, vengeful. She wanted to slap him again. “You've never been his father.”

There was the clacking of high heels on pavement behind her, and then Cassandra appeared at her side, her face eager in a way that annoyed Teena for no good reason. She'd have to work on that. “Here,” Cassandra said, handing Teena Bill's gun. “You need this.”

Carl's forehead furrowed. He couldn't believe this, all the women and children in his life dying him. “Cassandra?” he said with confusion. “Darling, you were supposed to call me when you got in.”

“Shut up, you son of a bitch,” Cassandra snapped. “Teena Mulder told me everything. I know you're not a victim. Not the way Jeffrey and I are. That's why the aliens didn't take you at El Rico.”

_ Aliens, what nonsense,  _ Teena thought, but she didn't say anything because Carl seemed to be taking it very seriously. “Darling…” he tried again, and the word sounded bizarre in his mouth. Absolutely no sincerity. Pet names didn't fit him at all.

“Shut up! I don't want to talk at you, I don't want to look at you. Not after you took my son!” shouted Cassandra, and she ran at him and slapped him across the face. As if on instinct, he hit her across the face, hard enough to knock her back onto the pavement. 

The sirens were wailing so loud that they were giving Teena a headache. They were looking for her children. Carl had slapped his wife. She raised the gun and shouted for him to stop. 

He turned to her and saw the gun, his face contorting with surprise. In front of him, Cassandra stood and ran back to Teena's side, panting hard, her hand against her face.

Carl laughed when he saw the gun, truly amused. “Oh, Elizabeth,” he said, using the name that Teena refused to let anyone use anymore out of embarrassment. Because that was what he had called her when they were going out in college, on that night in her bed. “The audacity in you. In you too, Cassandra. You'd shoot the man who fathered your son?  _ Both _ of your sons, your only sons?”

“You're not his father,” Teena growled. “I told you you're not his father.”

“I am his father!” he shouted, his face turning purple from fury. “I have a right to him, and to Jeffrey as well! Take the girl if you must, take yourselves if you must, but leave me the boys. They are my boys. Mine!”

“Jeffrey is not your anything!” shouted Cassandra, and she really did sound hysterical. She sounded as if she might cry. “You've never been a father to him! All you wanted was to be able to tell people you had a son. I'm the one who takes care of him.”

The sirens really were giving Teena a migraine, making her head spin. She couldn't think. She lifted the gun to aim at Carl's head. 

He was too angered to laugh at them, his face still purple, but he was not afraid. “I don't think you can do it,” he said, and he sounded completely confident. “You don't have it in you.”

It was unladylike. Guns horrified her. Bill had to shoot a dog once when Fox was small because of rabies and she'd cried right alongside her son, to her great embarrassment. What would her mother think?

Teena cocked the gun and pulled the trigger, twice. The third time was Cassandra, yanking the gun from Teena's hand, and Teena actually found that she didn't mind a bit.

\---

Fox had been watching from the car, even though his mother had told him not to. He and Samantha watched, Sam sniffling as if she was going to burst into tears, and when his mother raised the gun, he understood what was going to happen.

He ducked his head, whispering, “Don't look, Sam, don't look,” and Samantha ducked, too, whimpering, her hands over her ears. 

But Fox didn't put his hands over his ears. He heard the gunshots, all three of them. He knew what was happening, and incredibly enough, he found he didn't care.

\---

After it was all over, they got a hotel room. His mom paid for it with a huge wad of cash that Fox found impressive, but she glared at him when he tried to bring it up. There were two beds in the room, so they divided it up like this: Mrs. Spender and Jeffrey in one bed, Samantha and his mom in the other, and Fox on a rickety cot by himself. Any other night, he would've protested having to share a bedroom with a bunch of girls and practically a baby, but that night he didn't have the energy. And besides, he was used to sharing a room with Samantha and Jeffrey now. At least he wasn't sleeping on the floor. 

After the kids and Mrs. Spender were asleep, his mom was still awake. She sat near the open window, smoking a cigarette and staring out into the night. Fox got off of his cot and crept over to stand beside her. “Mom?” he asked carefully.

“What is it, Fox?” she asked tiredly, but not with the usual amount of hostility that would make him scramble to answer  _ Nothing!  _

He fidgeted awkwardly, not sure what to say. It was only when she gave her usual weary sigh that he let the words spilling out: “Is Jeffrey really my brother?”

His mother looked up at him, and her eyes were dark in the moonlight. “Yes, Fox,” she said, almost sadly. “Yes, he is.”

Fox squirmed some more. He didn't know what to say. He had more questions, but he didn't know how to ask them. Didn't know how his mother would respond. “I protected him,” he said finally. “Him and Samantha. Just like you told me to.”

Her face softened just a little, like it did when he brought home a straight A report card or did his chores right. “I'm proud of you, Fox,” she said. “Thank you for taking care of he—them.”

She stood and hugged him, and once again, Fox didn't wriggle away. He stood there stiffly, hugging her back. He suddenly, tiredly added, “Mom?”

“Yes, sweetheart?”

“Thanks for coming to get us,” he said. He always thought it would be police officers, but it was his  _ mom _ . That seemed pretty awesome to him.

His mother didn't say  _ you're welcome,  _ but she did kiss him coolly on the top of the head. “Go to sleep, Fox,” she said, smoothing his hair and smiling smally before putting her cigarette out on the window sill and going to the bathroom. 

Fox climbed onto his cot and tried to fall asleep. He really did, but he couldn't stop thinking about it. About those soldiers, the way they watched them. About the men in black carrying Samantha and Jeffrey off. He knew his father and Mr. Spender worked in government, and that wasn't right. “It isn't fair,” he said out loud. 

“Fox, go to sleep,” Samantha groaned from her bed. “Mom will be back soon, and I'm tired.”

“It isn't fair, Sam,” Fox said determinedly. “The military and the soldiers, the government, the president, they're all supposed to protect us! But they didn't. Not you or me or Jeff.”

Samantha groaned again and turned over, putting a pillow over her head. Fox felt a hand on his shoulder and looked up to see his mother beside him. “Go to sleep,” she said quietly. 

“It isn't fair,” said Fox, lying back down. 

“I know it isn't. Go to sleep.” His mother crossed the room and climbed into bed next to Samantha. She gave Fox a stern look when he opened his mouth again. 

_ It isn't fair, though, _ Fox thought as he shut his eyes.  _ People should know about this. It isn't fair.  _ And lying there in that hotel room, right then, Fox Mulder decided to do something about it. 

\---

Years later, he would bring his partner in the FBI to California on a whim after a trip to Oregon and show her where he had been held captive for a month and a half, after a missing week that regression hypnosis suggested was the work of aliens. The air base where they'd run painful tests that he and his siblings didn't remember. Where his mother had shot his father. 

He showed her the handprints in the cement and told her,  _ This is proof.  _ The government was working against its citizens. And even though she had never really doubted something he himself claimed to go through (except for maybe the aliens, it must be some sort of trick or hallucination), seeing those handprints solidified something in her. He really couldn't be lying. Not about all of it.

The truth was shocking, but it was the truth. Fox Mulder believed in ghosts, aliens, and a government conspiracy. A man who he refused to call his father died outside of this base almost twenty years prior, and only a few select people knew who killed him. But his work remained, the people he left behind still doing it, and his work still had to be exposed. The truth must be known.


End file.
